AOL Money & Finance launched real-time quotes this week. The site's quote pages still headline with exchange-provided delayed stock prices. But right below that now, you can see a real-time quote that is provided by BATS Trading, an electronic communication network, or ECN (more information here). It shows the prices that broker dealers use to trade big lots of stock among themselves. It is usually the same as the price the exchanges quote and is especially reliable for stocks with major trading volume.

This real-time information can be quite useful if you are checking a stock that is making a big move during the day. For example, General Electric (NYSE: GE) is reporting earnings tomorrow and is in the news today as investors anticipate it may soon announce some spin-offs. As I look at the quote now (1:40 PM), I see the main quote is $27.45. But the real-time quote is at $27.60. That tells me that GE is higher heading into its earnings announcement. (Here's an earnings preview from Peter Cohan). Maybe this would be a good time to buy?

Since BloggingStocks is part of the AOL Money & Finance family of sites and links to AOL quotes in posts, all you have to do is click on a link on this site and you can see real-time quotes for yourself.

More recent improvements to AOL quotes pages include information by ticker on:
Option chains (see Time Warner's)
SEC filings (see Microsoft's)
Conference Calls (see Yahoo's)
Earnings releases (see Apple's)
Dividends & Splits (see Dupont's)


Disclosure: Amey Stone, an editor of BloggingStocks, doesn't own GE shares. She is an employee of AOL, a division of Time Warner (NYSE: TWX).

Tired of dealing with 15- or 20-minute delayed stock quotes on the internet? Now you won't have to. The Associated Press reports that CNBC, Google, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, and Xignite are teaming up with the NASDAQ OMX Group to offer free real-time stock quotes, without a subscription.

This isn't that exciting: most retail investors are already to get free real-time quotes through the websites of the brokerages they use -- Fidelity, Schwab, E*Trade, Ameritrade, ScottTrade and every other broker I can think of already offers this service.

The question is whether investors should be excited and, I believe, the answer is a resounding no. Warren Buffett has said that investors should only buy stocks they would be comfortable owning if the market closed for 10 years. Online trading has led to many investors checking their stocks hourly, turning it into a video game atmosphere of overtrading, speculative buying, and panic selling. I cringe when I think about how much money retail investors have lost because of "free real-time stock quotes!"

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:NYX) has just announced plans to test a pilot program to offer real-time stock quotes to internet users. This is now the next battle in the long war between Wall Street and Main Street.

In the past, Wall Street had a monopoly on current information on the financial markets. You could read a newspaper to get closing quotes from the prior day on most of the financial markets. However, if you wanted current prices, you had to go to an investment professional.

The next stage in the revolution was the development of the financial news channels on the cable networks. You could get market information all day long. During the 1990's, people were literally glued to their television sets.

The next stage was the development of the financial web sites on the internet. Now you could get market quotes on a delayed basis whenever you wanted.

However, Wall Street still had a 10-15 minute advantage. This edge is about to disappear with the new pilot program offering real time quotes.

The professionals on the Street still have other advantages and numerous ways to make money. However, the ongoing democratization of the financial markets continues.

Doug Roberts is the Founder and Chief Investment Strategist for FollowtheFed.com, an independent research firm focusing on investment strategies using the Federal Reserve's impact on the stock prices. He previously held executive positions at Morgan Stanley Group and Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.